


Red Tinted Cups

by poorbasil



Category: Prison Break
Genre: Alex "I still love my ex wife" Mahone, Gen, M/M, Slow Burn, coffee shop AU, endgame Michael/Mahone, introspective Alex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-06 10:12:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11598471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poorbasil/pseuds/poorbasil
Summary: A much needed Prison Break coffee shop AU. Alexander Mahone is an FBI agent working out of the Chicago field office. Recently divorced, Alex's life is slowly crumbling around him, the past dragging him down further and further as he resigns himself to a life unfulfilled. One day he decides to get a cup of coffee and suddenly he's found the next fix he didn't even know he was looking for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly have no idea where I'm going with this so please don't judge me too harshly. I've been binging PB and I love all the interactions between Alex and Michael and I just realized their was a lack of PB coffee shop aus so I decided to rectify that problem. I don't have a beta so all mistakes are my own and feel free to point them out (and there's probably some since I didn't spend a lot of time editing, I just wanted to put this out there). Any ideas you want to lend my way are very much appreciated! Michael will make his debut in the next chapter!

Alex always believed he broke the typical FBI agent stereotype, despite what he knew his colleagues  whispered behind his back, but the one classic archetypical habit he could not break, couldn't even imagine going a day without, was his caffeine fix. Dealing with lunatics, psychos, and megalomaniacs was beyond taxing, and that was all before he even left the office.

Yeah, his colleagues in the Bureau were far past what was considered "normal."

He fit right in.

After closing up his last case, a small town left distraught over an unexpected murder that proved to be much more complex than he'd expected, the higher-ups had decided that Alex and his team needed a breather. Or rather, it had come to their attention that Alex was extremely behind in submitting his paperwork and the lull in cases requiring his deliberation had been their way of letting Alex know that he had some serious catching up to do.

The bastards.

Still, Alex knew it was probably for the best. He had been intentionally putting off the dull and routine requirement that was paperwork for quite some time. There was something about the press of buttons on the keyboard, the insistent, _tap, tap, tap_ , that accompanied the push of every key that left him feeling increasingly unhinged. Nothing but silence and his fingers hastily moving across the keyboard, his thoughts narrowed in, focused intensely on his task. There was no escaping it, no breaking his concentration when he put his mind to completing the unfortunate side effect that came with working a government job.

It was just, once he solved a case, once the criminal had been caught, the suspect in custody or locked up behind bars, Alex wanted nothing to do with the case. He didn't want to remember, to reflect on the multitude of thoughts and concerns that flashed through his mind at lightning speed, a quick secession of seemingly independent thoughts that he was able to then string together as if by divine intervention.

He'd been praised at the Bureau for his uncanny ability to reach conclusions that other agents would spend days laboring over while the information was right under their noses the entire time. It was what made him so effective, so efficient, and yet, when a case was over, it was as though he'd come down from a high so surreal that reality felt like a dream. The investigation, the chase, the thrill it all gave him, that was what kept him moving forward each day. He forfeited the essentials, casting self-care to the layside, staying up at odd hours of the night, surviving on stale bread and Ritz crackers he kept in his apartment and whatever his colleagues left on his desk in the hopes he'd take the hint and relax for twenty minutes to eat.

The crash, though, was more like a plunge, a jump to sudden death. It came swiftly, hitting him nearly almost as soon as he slammed the door of his car shut to drive home. Even though he had long since come to expect the onslaught of sensations, it still struck him each time, taking the wind right out of him and leaving his mind reeling, body finally slumping against the steering wheel, fingers gripping the smooth but worn leather, nails digging in to the supple material and leaving little half moon shaped indentations.

That was why he hated paperwork. Placing all his focus on the words across a screen, his mind replaying everything, every minute detail, most of them useless and so inconsequential to the case as a whole that he abstained from including them. Besides, how was he suppose to explain how the piece of flaked dingy yellow paint that got stuck beneath his thumbnail made him realize that it was paint thinner stolen from The Home Depot that was used to set the victim's house ablaze, leading him to track down the employee who foolishly stole it in the first place.

Nobody ever questioned his reaching, the uncanny but accurate manner in which he was able to pin clues together, perhaps they should.

Writing reports was wearing on Alex, and that was the crux of it. The action of jogging his memory to recall every aspect of a case forced him to relieve it all. To remember the shattering shrieks of those he was too late to save, of the times when he failed his fellow citizens, his country. To remember what it felt like to get inside the head of a serial murder or rapist.

There was no escape from it. The thoughts followed him home, hovering in the empty passenger's seat of his car, lingering behind him as he trekked up the stairs to his second floor lodging, settling within the walls of the place he had been renting for the past few months but couldn't bring himself to call home.

He'd thought briefly about adopting a pet, maybe a cat, something to come home to besides the unnerving shadows forming in the corners of his living room, strange shapes beckoning him into the darkness and calling out to the restlessness inside him. He had let the idea slip away, though. He could barely pull himself together most mornings, how could he be expected to take care of a cat?

Alex shook his insistent thoughts from his head. It was far too early to be dwelling in self-pity. It was only a little past 7:00 am and he hadn't even walked one block from his apartment building.

The air was crisp in the early morning, the sun only just rising and yet to ease the chill that had settled over the city during the night.

 _I'm going to need a thicker jacket_ , he thought absentmindedly as he walked down the sidewalk, the muted sounds of a city slow to wake up hovering around him. The busy shuffle of activity was still about an hour away, and Alex enjoyed the relative serenity.

His eyes felt bleary as he tread onwards, the pitter patter of the wooden heel in his leather dress shoes hitting the ground seemed to echo off the walls surrounding him, the tall buildings trapping the sound and encasing him in the illusion of safety that their sturdy appearance provided. He knew better than to fall into believing that naive notion, but still, it was nice to imagine and not think about the darker side of the city he knew all too well.

The high-pitched chiming of a bell brought him out of his thoughts and he turned his head instinctively, out of an ingrained sense of self-preservation he had beat into him to search for the source of the peculiar and atypical noise.

In front of him, a person clutching a mug to her chest was exiting the little storefront tucked between two larger structures. Alex's eyes drifted upwards, spotting the source of the chime. A tiny bell attached to the door, the sound signifying that a customer had just left.

Alex paused, his body coming to a fault outside the shop. The door had fallen shut, the customer gone, already turned the corner block by now. Alex stared into the shop though the large floor to ceiling windows on either side of the door.

It looked empty. Alex checked his wrist watch. It was still early, barely twenty minutes past the hour.

Perhaps a cup of coffee would do to put him in better spirits. He had planned on grabbing a cup in the break room as soon as he dropped his briefcase in his office, his morning ritual. But that scalding liquid was more like sugar water tinted a dark brown to mimic the inviting hue of coffee than anything else. Sure, it had just enough kick in it to get him through the first hours of the day before someone in the office ordered a round of late morning drinks. Although, Alex wasn't really sure if it was the kick of caffeine or the obsessive amount of sugar he poured straight from the sugar shaker into his mug that left him feeling just alert enough to push through the hours.

He'd taken to keeping his own diner-sized sugar shaker in the cabinet above the coffee pot after the using the month's supply in a week.

 _A freshly brewed cup could never hurt,_ he reasoned. He was definitely not stalling the inevitable arrival at work and the paperwork waiting for him stacked upon his desk. 

The little bell chimed as he walked in. He found the contraption sort of on the cheesy side, but given the lack of staff currently situated at the register, he reasoned that it was a good way to signal when someone entered the place.

He had only made it half way into the shop when someone popped up from below the counter.

It was a pale woman with dark red, nearly auburn hair, the long strands pulled back into a low ponytail. Some shorter pieces had slipped from their binding and settled along the sides of her face, framing her soft cheeks and she smiled at him, her eyes searching to find his.

"Good morning," she said, her voice cheery in a more natural sort of way than Alex was used to. One of the benefits of his line of work was that a falsified pleasant disposition was viewed as more out of place than not.

"What can I get you?"

Alex squinted at the chalk board hanging behind her. It had been quite a while since he ordered coffee out, and he'd forgotten all the variations one brew could make.

"Morning, I- ah, can you give me a moment?" He felt slightly foolish, walking into a coffee shop and not even knowing what to order, but he quickly berated himself for the thought. Given the columns worth of lists detailing various types of coffee, it was normal for him to take a moment in deciding.

The woman wasn't the slightest bit phased by his uncertainty, if she even took notice of it at all, Alex thought. Her easy smile stayed in place, and Alex observed how the unfettered natural lighting poured into the room, filling the space with a softness that highlighted the slight creases at the corner of her eyes.

A beat passed and Alex was still yet to place an order.

"How about an espresso?" she offered.

"Huh?" Alex looked back down to her. He'd gotten lost staring at the small illustrations that decorated the outline of the chalk board. Just simple drawings of thin vines crawling up the side of the board, twisting in and out of the letters and connecting the words together. He'd been contemplating the way in which the words "cafe latte" had been entwined when he heard the woman's voice.

"Oh- "

Alex let the words trail off, thinking about her suggestion for a moment. It was tempting, but he knew that the watered down shit they had back in the office did help keep him from becoming too dependent on the stimulant, although the copious amount of sugar he used may have counteracted his valiant effort nonetheless. Still, he knew it wouldn't be in his best interest to show up wired to the core and running with pent up energy to work, especially on a day when the most exciting activity expected of him was penning is signature. He needed something stronger than the coffee his work provided, but not anything that would make his brain race a thousand miles per hour, not with the notion of impending paperwork still needing to be attended to plaguing the back of his mind.

"No, I don't think-" he began, but the woman beat him too it.

"Perhaps just a regular blend?"

Alex glanced up a the board again, noting the various types of blends written in perfect handwriting straight across the board, small capital letters that looked as though they had been stenciled on.

Not wanting to embarrass himself over being unfamiliar with the different types of blends, Alex simply nodded, responding with an affirmative sound a moment later to ensure she understood his acceptance.

"Something dark," he added as an afterthought.

He reached into his back pocket to retrieve his wallet, his hand brushing against his suit jacket with the motion and he momentarily cursed himself over his stupidity as his holstered gun came in full view.

Thankfully, the woman either didn't notice or decided not to say anything about the matter as she reached out and took the card from his procured hand.

"And can you make it sweet, please?" he said. He wasn't particularly sure if coffee blends came in sweetened flavors, although he recalled seeing some exotic blends the last time he spend an extended amount of time in the grocery store, but that was before-

He shook the thought out of his mind.

 _No sense dwelling on the past,_ he told himself, the words circling around in his head. Just like all the other times the memories threatened to peak through, he'd push them aside. He knew the words he told himself were a lie. Fixating on things was like a way of life to him, and it took immense difficulty to suppress the urge to let those traitorous thoughts swim around freely in his brain.

 He could always just add his own sugar anyway.

Alex moved over to lean against the coffee bar after the woman returned his card, letting his mind drift as he observed the interior of the shop.

He hadn't noticed it before, but the wall across from him was decorated from floor to ceiling, intricate lines and shapes etched into the surface and up the white space like an empty canvas primed and waiting to be absorbed in color.

The outer portions of the right wall were sparsely detailed, the meticulous line work converged the closer the lines came to the center, twisting into a more elaborate design. It was a mural of sorts, stark cyan blue lines bending and turning together to form an image of a building, church at that.

Alex's eyes narrowed at the image and he racked his brain to place it.

It was St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. The drawing began at rose window, lines climbing upward and connecting on either side of the main body of the structure in points, forming twin spires parallel to one another. It was odd to see an image of the cathedral isolated from the various towering structures that surrounded it.

Alex didn't consider himself a particularly a religious man. His sense of consciousness provided the reason for that, despite his own longing to bury the thought away under layer of memories he would prefer to eradicate for good. Standing hand in hand with the Father wasn't his place, he knew. His grip was cold and his touch fatal, fingers coated in the viscous deep hue he had become acquainted with at a young age.

Alexander Mahone wasn't a good man, this he knew; he had long since accepted his place and this fact of life. The slot allotted to him in the holy land had been revoked the moment he reveled in the crimson tinge shading his knuckles and dripping off his lip to stain the stark white of his collared shirt.

He had come to terms with his past, acknowledged his future fate forever besmirched by the requirements of career and his own unscrupulous nature. Adhering to the pious preaching of principled men would serve him no good. 

His wondering gaze landed on small black dot in an endless sea of white walls and blue lines illustrated on the wall.

Illustrations of birds in flight flanked the outline of the either side of building, however, a single bird was perched on the drawing of the central cross that stood proud above the circular window.

A raven.

God's messengers to the mortal world, the harbinger of death.

What a peculiar addition to the illustration.

"Sir?" called out a feminine voice, rousing Alex from his ponderings.

"Thank you-" he looked down at that white nametag, her named spelled out in all capital letters written in the same handwriting as the letters adorning the chalk board.

"Thank you, Sara."

Alex cradled the cup in his hands, enjoying the warmth seeping through the paper and taking away some of the chill that had settled under his skin.

He took a sip. It was good. Flavorful too. But bitter as hell.

He shuffled over to the fixing station, opening the lid of the sugar shaker and pouring in a heap of the sweet substance like he did every morning.

He brought the drink to his lips, the hint of a smile playing at the corners of his lips as the liquid ran down his throat.

He'd have to come back here.

* * *

 

Work was- uneventful. Mounds of documents cluttered nearly the entire surface of his desk. Papers needing his signature, reports needing a look-over by him before being submitted to the director, his own scribbled handwritten notes sticking out from in-between various stacks. Colored sticky notes broke up the monotony of white pilled high and threatening to tumble.

 They'd been a gift from his wife. She'd left a pink one stuck to his briefcase one morning with the words, "look inside" scrawled across it. He had plucked the little note away, stuffing it into his pocket with a smile and waited until he reached the office to see what she left him.

It was a small package of post-it notes, all in various colors. Later she told him that she thought a little color would brighten up his day, at least marginally, and it did.

Or rather, it had, back then. Now, the little square sheets of sticky paper only reminded him of his failures, of what he left behind.

He didn't know why he hadn't just thrown out the remaining stacks of post-it notes.

No, that wasn't right. He did know, but he couldn't bring himself to follow through with that train of logical thinking. He could have given them to a co-worker, but then he'd have to risk seeing little glimpses of colored paper around the office, sticking off the edge of computer monitors and placed on top of reports.

It was ridiculous, really. They were just sticky notes, and he wasn't one to get lost in the sentimental side of life, but he couldn't shake the feelings. His plan was just to use them all up, hence the rather large multitude of colored papers currently poking out from different places in his office. And when they were all used up, well, he hadn't thought that far. Perhaps, when they were all gone, he would finally be able to move forward, to leave the past in the past, let go of the burden of the many mistakes that drove him and Pam to separate in the first place.

Alex took another sip of his coffee, closing his eyes briefly as the flavor played with his taste buds. He couldn't place the taste. It was a blend he hadn't tried before, not that he considered himself a coffee connoisseur by any means, and the copious amount of sugar he used probably altered the taste to someone unrecognizable and terribly saccharine.

The coffee served to ease his nerves, just a bit.

 _No sense dwelling on the past,_ he reminded himself for what felt like the fifth time since he woke up that morning.

Besides, he had reports to write.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex decides to get another cup.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm new to writing multi-chaptered fics, so I apologzie for what will be an irregular updating schedule. I'm also taking summer classes and will be starting school again soon which will affect how fast I can get new chapters out. As of right now, expect chapters to be relatively short. Please enjoy this second installment! Again, I don't have a beta so feel free to point out any mistakes or provide me your feedback about the characters.

Alex pinched the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses up off his eyes with two fingers. After a moment, he simply removed the wire frames, placing them down besides the keyboard. The computer screen glared back at him, its glow bright and intense in the dim of his office.

The sun had tucked itself away behind a cloud, diffusing its light into a muted shade of gray that fell over his office though the window, dulling everything around him. He preferred to work in the natural light of the day as the sharpness of artificial LEDs seemed to pierce through his temples, leaving him with a mounting headache that would only get worse the longer he stayed beneath them.

It was nearing 5:00pm now, and soon the last vestiges of light currently shielded behind the storm clouds would fade away. He stared listlessly at the computer screen, eyes mesmerized by the text cursor signaling where he had left off, blinking in and out of existence, waiting for him to continue. 

He relented, merely adding a closing period to the sentence he was working on and making to close the document and exit out of the computer. He knew that he wouldn't be able to get anything else done, his mind scrambled as it was. He could barely recall what he had been working on the last couple of hours as it was.

The work always got done, he made sure of that, regardless if it was submitted in a timely manner or not, but sometimes he could go a whole work day and be unable to rouse his mind into remembering exactly what he wrote. Of course, it would all come back to him the next day, as soon as he sat behind the computer screen again, glasses fixed to his nose and fingers itching to continue where he left off so he could finally be rid of the menace that was mandatory bureaucratic paperwork.

Besides, it was best he left now. It looked like it was going to down pour soon and the last thing he needed was to trod a wet trail in his wake in his apartment building. It wasn't the most ritzy of places, considering how low maintenance he was and the fact that he left Pam the majority of their shared revenue in the divorce, but he knew for a fact his landlady would not appreciate him sogging up the carpet.

Ten minutes later and he was outside, making his way back to his apartment. Most days, he would drive to work. While he choose his apartment with its proximity to the Bureau's  field office in mind, he tended to make the journey back home on foot when he knew a dull work day was in store for him. On days that he knew he'd be pulling overtime, or if he was actively engaged in an ongoing investigation, then he'd drive, sometimes parking his car in the lot and letting it stay there for a day or two.

But on weeks like the one that lay ahead of him, when his day's would revolve around shuffling papers and the greatest danger facing him was a potential paper cut, he'd walk to and from work.

There was something about the noise of the city that set him at ease. Listening to the sounds of traffic, horns blaring and tires screeching, people talking or music playing outside a storefront, it gave him a sense of contentment, knowing his city was just as it should be, incessant and loud. Within the confines of his car, regardless of whether he opened up a window or blasted the radio, a sense of trepidation always seemed to be lingering, leaving him feeling trapped.

Despite the chilly evening air, Alex felt clammy in his work suit, the starched collar of his white shirt sticking uncomfortably to his neck. He chalked the feeling down to the faulty AC in the building. Management was in the process of updating the air-conditioning unit to something more state-or-the-art, the downside of this, though, was that until the project was finished, his floor was stuck with the older unit that was prone to constant malfunction.  

The outside air nipped at his skin, cooling the sweat building up on his neck and he shivered instinctively, clutching his briefcase tighter.

The sky seemed to darken further with every consecutive step he took. The weather was often unpredictable. Sometimes mere minutes after storm clouds rolled in, the sky would open up abruptly, pouring out in torrents like blood from a gashed neck. Other times, nothing but a mere sprinkle would be the result of hours worth of ominous gray clouds and the distant rumble of thunder.

Alex prayed today would be the latter.

His paced slowed down as he approached the street with the coffee shop.

Alex considered himself to be a man accustomed to routine. He liked knowing what to expect out of life, and sticking to a self-imposed handbook of times and behaviors seemed to serve him well. Of course, being in the line of work that he was, the unexpected was to be expected. Still, Alex liked to remain in control of as much as he could in his life.

The change in his morning routine, however unexpected it was when he set out early that day, was welcome. He let his mind drift to the shop, picturing the interior of the place in his head. The precise penmanship adorning the chalk board, not a stray line of chalk in sight. The pots behind the register, all carefully labeled with each different roast in large and legible handwriting. The wall. The raven.

He couldn't help but wonder who it was that put all the time and effort into the shop's embellishment.

He didn't realize his feet had stopped moving until he felt the gentle breeze that accompanied a person brushing past him and he remained where he was. He looked up and to the left; he was outside the coffee shop.

While he didn't particularly need any sort of stimulant at this hour, he knew that he wouldn't be going to sleep at a normal time regardless. Even before his divorce, he'd taken to staying up until the early hours of the morning even when he wasn't pursing a case. The blissful release of slipping into unconsciousness didn't come easy to him.

There were times when he'd clamber into bed around the same time as Pam, only to rouse himself out of a half slumber barely an hour later, his skin crawling with restless energy that he couldn't suppress. He ended up spending most nights on the couch before it became a forced part of his routine at Pam's insisting when their relationship became too strained. He'd put the television on the lowest volume setting, careful not to accidently wake his sleeping son.

Whatever was playing was of little consequence, he wasn't truly watching the midnight informercials insisting he buy a set of kitchen knives for three easy payments of $16.99.

He would just sit there, surrounded by plush cushions Pam bought at _Pier 1 Imports_ and the illumination emitting from the screen in front of him, his mind mostly blank, his breathing easy. It was safer this way, somehow, for him to be apart from her, in some strange way, it was. Or at least, that's how he justified it, keeping his distance, slowly working to remove himself from the mundane aspects of her life.

With the unappealing evening he had already constructed in his mind becoming an even more dreary thought by the second, Alex decided that perhaps another change in his routine was called for. He pushed the door of the shop open, listening for the little jingle of the bell overhead.

* * *

 

The atmosphere inside the shop was much more jovial than when he had come in earlier that morning. People were sitting at tables and in arm chairs, talking to one another, texting on their phone, reading thick novels balanced on their laps. A modest cluster of customers stood at the counter waiting for their drinks.

Alex half expected to see Sara again and was disappointed when he gave the register area a look-over and saw no sign of her dark red hair peeking out from behind the small gathering of people. There was something about Sara, about the soft and charming smile that seemed to decorate her countenance so easily, as if the emotion was second nature and not something that had to be forced into place for the sake of keeping face.

A part of Alex wanted to turn around and leave. He didn't really know why he entered the shop in the first place, but leaving now would just make him look like a fool, not that anybody was paying particular attention to the aging man with a receding hairline dressed in the staple piece black and white jacket and shirt ensemble.

He buried that tiny sliver of displeasure tinged with anxiety inside, telling himself that he'd analyze the feelings later and knowing at the same time that he would do that exact opposite.

 He approached the counter, waiting behind the man ordering ahead of him.

Alex stepped up when the customer in front of him moved and tried to contort his appearance into something that came off a little less murderous. He couldn't do much to help the fact that irritated grimace seemed to be his default facial expression.

The person standing on the other side of the counter was nothing more than a boy to Alex's eyes. He looked about sixteen, seventeen at most, with light brown hair cut short on the sides and bangs that tapered off abruptly in a straight line hanging above his brows.

"What can I get for you?" he said, the slightly higher pitch of his voice confirming Alex's assumption about the boy's youth.

Alex realized he wasn't exactly sure what Sara had made for him that morning. He tried to just wing it.

"Dark roast, medium. Extra sweet," he stated with feigned confidence. Luckily, his assertive tone and characteristic appearance of a man vaguely pissed-off for no discernible reason other than his own existence worked to his benefit. The boy, whose nametag read, "Ed," scribbled his order on a paper cup.

Alex watched him out of the corner of his eye, taking note of the boy's messy handwriting.

He couldn't be the person who wrote the lists on the chalk board, Alex determined. Even if the boy wasn't just jotting down words in quick strokes, the way in which he held the black marker in his hand was all wrong, the pressure of the marker against the cup was too light.

No, the person who had decorated the chalk board did so with carefully assurance, knowing their strokes to be correct and not second guessing the movement of the dusty chalk in their hand. 

For some reason, Alex had lumped the decorated chalk board together with the intricate wall detail in his thoughts. It was entirely possible that the sophisticated drawing covering the wall originated from the hand of another person, or that it was simply a customized stencil produced in a factory and traced over by a professional. Yet, for some reason, Alex dismissed those theories. He had a feeling that the two separate works came from the same individual, and decided to make it his undertaking to discover who this person was.

He stood against the wall only a few feet from the pick-up counter, keeping his distance from the other patrons as he observed the space before him. His eyes trailed lazily over the other customers milling around until his gaze came to settle on the raven again.

He couldn't place it, but he had a nagging suspicion that the wall detail had a more personal meaning than just a depiction of the historic cathedral.

"Dark roast, extra sweet," called out a voice, and Alex shifted his gaze back to the counter to retrieve his drink.

Hollow words of thanks died on his lips as he looked up at the voice.

The man had already turned back around, wasting no time making the next customer's order, but the glimpse Alex had caught was more than enough.

His voice was clipped and efficient, the voice of a man used to the monotony that was calling out orders for hours on end. Yet, there was a certain melodious component to his tone, the words rolling off his tongue dulcet and sweet, more like powdered sugar than candied syrup.

Alex picked up his drink, moving over to the fixing station to prepare it to his liking. He opened the lid of the sugar shaker, surreptitiously turning his head to the right in order to glance over his shoulder at the coffee bar. The man had placed two more drinks on the counter in the meantime, although Alex, for the life of him, couldn't recall what they were. He worked fast, but Alex could tell his speed was contributed to skill rather than a hurried frenzy of movement.

He watched the man's hands whip across the work space, moving from task to task. Pouring, stirring, shaking.

It was fascinating to watch him work, Alex mused.

"Umph," someone let out an exasperated sound beside him, making Alex pull his eyes reluctantly away from watching the man.

 _Did people have no patience?_ Alex thought with a shred of irritation.

He scooted over a bit, allowing the irate customer to shuffle into his vacated space.

The sugar shaker was forgotten in his grasp, and Alex placed it back on the surface, staring into his drink with a grimace as a mound of sugar floated in his cup, the tiny crystal particles slowly dissolving into the hot liquid.

It tasted like molasses, but he'd make do.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex needs to stop watching infomercials.

The days passed by in one gigantic blur, every hour he spent at the office more tedious then the last, and his nights weren't much better. He'd learned a heck of a lot about the stackable Tupperware made from biodegradable plastic, and he was pretty sure that he watched the same clip of a cabinet full of plastic containers knocking a woman out at least five times in the last four days. During his more lucid, albeit dubiously so, waking hours of the early morning, he found himself nearly picking up the phone and dialing the 1-800 number before he remembered that he barely had enough food in his apartment to fill up one shelf in the pantry; there was no way he needed an express order of 50 easy-stack Tupperware containers.

On the upside, the wooden surface of his desk at work was visible once again. What was probably a month's worth build up of paperwork was now down to one final small stack. One small stack which he was determined to plow through right away when he stepped into his office, and then he'd be done. A new case would probably be assigned to him and his team that following week, which meant less time to putt around his lonely apartment uselessly and back on the city streets where he belonged.

As much as Alex tried to ignore it, he found his stray thoughts gravitate to his latest puzzle, his little undertaking on the side, the coffee shop, particularly, who was responsible for the store's elaborate ornamentation.

He'd been back three more times, twice in the morning and once in the evening. Under normal circumstances, he considered spending his money on such trivial pleasures like freshly brewed coffee to be quite fruitless, the effort put into making the detour in his morning route a waste of time, but even he had to begrudgingly admit to himself that the cup of Joe did more to pick him up than a gallon of that stuff they kept in the break room ever did.

His co-workers had side-eyed him when they first saw him walk past the little room housing refreshments and non-perishable food items on the office floor. Alex paid them no mind. It was like he wasn't allowed to welcome any change in his life without a concerned gaze directed his way or a barely concealed pinched expression on a face ducked away too quickly before he could call anyone out on it.

He knew where the source their more skittish behavior around him stemmed from however, as much as he tried not to tarry over it.

He'd become sort of notorious for his emotional out bursts when under pressure or overly stressed. Whether it be at the utter ineptitude his team sometimes exhibited, or an elusive con with a murderous streak who kept evading him. Alex tended to be more on the volatile side, and when tapped with just the right amount of pressure, he'd explode at anyone with the misfortune of being in close quarters to him. He knew it wasn't fair, that his reactions were often times uncalled for, especially those directed at his own team, but he couldn't reign in the sheer need to express his pure frustration and broadcast his feelings as bombastically as possible.

It was a bad trait, something he'd developed along the way in his youth that was heightened by his time in the military. The presence of Pam at his side, as stalwart as she was kind, served to counteract this part of him, but as the distance grew between them, the fuse which lit his explosive feelings a flame became shorter and shorter until even Pam herself had become the catalyst for some of his episodes.

Alex sighed, a shred of anger at himself and his tenuous grip on his emotions slipping into his heart before he promptly crushed the feeling away.

 _Stop fixating on it_ , his subconscious helpfully supplied, the words floating around in his brain for a moment until he caved in and held onto them, pushing the wisdom locked in them into the forefront of his mind. It was times like these when he nearly acquiesced himself into complying with Pam's parting suggestion that he start seeing a psychiatrist regularly.

For now, Alex sealed his emotions away, raking a hand through his hair and shaking off his gloomy temperament.

* * *

 

When he left his apartment, he told himself he wasn't going to go back to the coffee shop, and he held firmly to that declaration until he found himself standing outside the very place, his hand already latching onto the door handle and pushing forward.

So maybe his resolve wasn't all that strong sometimes.

Still, he couldn't quench his ceaseless pondering. He wanted to know the answers behind the seemingly innocent drawing of the cathedral, because he just knew there was more to it than just a pretty picture.

"Morning," greeted Sara from behind the counter, and Alex smiled at her cheery voice. 

"Good morning to you too, Sara," he replied as he made his way up to her.

He'd been here enough times now to have some basic semblance of the weekday work schedule. Sara was always there in the mornings, opening the shop at 7:00am, the starting time Alex had gleaned from the little handwritten sign posted on the widow listing the place's hours. The handwriting of which, to no surprise, was the same as one on the chalk board. Ed, the teenager who served him that first evening, worked in the late afternoon, although Alex assumed he was only part-time, probably clocking in not too soon after school ended.

 And that other man, Alex wasn't sure. He'd been there the second time Alex visited in the evening, and just like before, Alex had found his gaze drifting unconsciously towards him, watching him from his place in line as he made quick work of the drink orders. Alex hadn't been able to catch a glimpse of his nametag yet, much to his chagrin; he liked having a name to associate with a face.

He'd looked on as the man moved around the little workspace, his hands always holding something or another, his feet never settling in one spot for more than a blink of an eye. Alex noted his short dark hair, cropped so close to his head, his eyes, which Alex was pretty sure were a shade of blue, but he moved too fast for Alex to gather a more accurate description. He'd been, not staring per se, just observing, intently, with a lot of concentration that he hadn't even noticed the line moved up until someone behind him tapped him on the shoulder.

The image of this nimble man filled his head, making his smile grow as he stopped in front of the counter.

"How are you today?" he asked.

"Well, seeing as the day has just begun and it's a Friday, I'm quite well," she said. "The usual?"

"Yep," Alex replied, then paused for a beat before inquiring, "and how are you so sure that this is my usual? I could come in tomorrow and order something totally different."

She smirked at him as if sharing in an inside joke. "You could, true. But I have the feeling that you'll come in here tomorrow and order the exact same thing."

He met her words with a smirk of his own. There was something so settling about Sara. He barely knew her, had scarcely exchanged anything beyond the customary words necessary to order, and yet, he felt soothed by her presence.

"And how do you know that I'll be back tomorrow?"

At that she gave him a poignant stare, her lips twisting and her brow raising. She didn't dignify his words with a response, instead, turning her back to him as she began to prepare his drink.

"You know I can just add extra sugar in here for you, right?" she said from behind the counter, her back facing him as he walked over to the waiting area.

"I've seen you dumping spoonfuls of sugar into your drink for the past three days now," she added to clarify.

"You could," he said, "but I enjoy the act of adding it myself. Besides, you don't know how much sugar I like."

"Oh, I'm sure I could just pour half the shaker in and you'd feel right at home."

He gave her a mock glare before his face dissolved into a smile again.

"Cheeky."

He reached for the drink after she placed it on the counter, moving over to do exactly what Sara had just alleged.

He stood there, stirring in the crystal particles with a wooden stick, letting go every other second or so to watch the stick spin a loop around the cup. An idea had come to him.

"Sara," he called out, placing the lid back on his cup and leaning his back against the fixings counter.

He brought his drink up to his lips before continuing, savoring the sweet, hot liquid on his tongue for a moment.

"Say, I've been wondering, who did you commission to create that drawing over there?" he gestured to the decorated wall with his free hand, sipping his coffee as he waited for her response.

"Commission?" she said, "It wasn't a commission. One of my employees took it upon himself to decorate the place personally."

Alex took note of the possessive pronoun. "You mean you own this place?"

Sara nodded, "You bet I do. I bought it a few months ago actually." 

Alex hummed, storing that information away for the time being. He waited a beat, wondering if she would elaborate on the employee who created the piece. Three sips of coffee later and she still hadn't said anything, Alex decided to be a little more direct.

"You say an employee made that himself? An art student I take it then?"

"Oh, he's far from being a student anymore. He teaches art classes though."

"Really?"

"Yeah, to the kids at the community center." Her face was turned away from him again and he stared at her backside, at the way her ponytail shook while she worked, at the fluffy hairs that clung to her neck, too short to stay put in the hair band.

"That's how we met actually," she supplied as an afterthought, setting the rag she was using to wipe the counter clean on the side.

"You were his student?"

She let out a bemused chuckle. "One of his students? Oh God, no. I have a lot of patience, but I'm terrible at art. No, we met at the community center."

Alex had the nagging sensation that she was holding something back but didn't press it. He didn't need to know about whatever history it seemed like Sara and this art teacher had, he just needed to know who he was.

"His name is Michael."

There, finally! A name drop, and he didn't even have to pry all that hard. Alex hid his victory grin behind his coffee cup.

"I'll have to look out for him next time I come," he said. And look out he would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone is enjoying this little random story so far. I have a lot of ideas for this story, and a major plot in the works if this all works out. As of today, this is the longest story I've ever written, and it's really not long at all. I've added "slow burn" to the tags because, yes, this will be a slow burn, how slow exactly, I'm not sure yet. 
> 
> I'm sorry if y'all don't really like short chapters, I'm not a big fan of them either. But I find it's easier for me to just get a little something out there than to harp over a longer chapter for days. 
> 
> Feel free to comment below on what you like so far. How do you think I'm handling the characters? I'd love to hear. Anything you want to see or suggest, or a mistake you'd like to point out, tell me! 
> 
> Stay tuned for the next installment.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The meeting you've been waiting for.

Light streamed in through the large windows of the coffee shop, softly caressing the shop and giving it an airy feel. It was Saturday, around half past 7 in the morning. Alex didn't even notice the chime of the bell anymore as he stepped inside, having become accustomed to toll of the little device.

As a result of his last promotion, Alex had the weekends off, a luxury he used to always try and take advantage of when him and Pam were still together. Back when it was just them and Alex was still a rookie, he used to squeeze every extra free second he could to be with Pam, her presence acting as a sort of an escape from the reality of his job, something he wish he had back when he was in the service.

She was always so patient, understanding every time she answered the phone to hear his despondent voice informing her that they would have to cancel their evening plans because of a breakthrough in a case. She never held his work against him, respecting his dedication to his profession and appreciating the passionate side it brought out in him.

When Cameron came along, he was more difficult to appease. Alex could still hear the sound of his child-like voice, could still see the pout on his lips when Alex was forced to tell him that his daddy couldn't take him to the park or to the game like he promised. Back then, when Cam was still a toddler, Alex was his world, and to see his son crushed, to know that it was because of him that Cam's eyes were red around the rims, Alex couldn't think of anything that hurt just as much. It pained him still that he and Cam had grown distant, knowing that it was entirely his fault for the drift between him and his son.

Alex hadn't seen him in a few weeks as it was.

His last visit had been tense. Alex had picked him up from the house he and Pam used to share, Cameron dragging his feet as he walked towards the car, practically throwing himself into the seat. Alex tried his best to ignore the flutter of his heart at seeing his son in such a state. He wasn't going to get into it with his son, even though he knew it was selfish of him to just pretend everything was fine. Maybe if he just keep pretending that he was still the hero in Cam's mind, then things would be okay.  

He knew the truth though, knew that letting this thing fester between them meant Cam's feelings, his resentment and anger at Alex, would only grow. And yet, Alex was too scared  of confrontation. Too scared that if he brought it up, Cam would lash out at him and Alex wouldn't be able to do anything but agree with whatever allegations his son brought up against him, knowing that they were all true. Alex was too scared to lose his son, even if it meant enduring strained meetings in which Cam would barely raise his eyes to look at him, it was better than not having him in his life at all.

Now, having weekends off left him with too much restless time to think and drive himself lost in his own mind. Usually, he'd go into the office anyways, supervising, observing, and as much as he denied it, micromanaging. He couldn't really help that last part no matter how many times he heard Pam's voice in his head reminding him that micromanaging in the workplace breed animosity among employees and that it was a sign of poor leadership skills and an inability to trust others.

The higher-ups constantly felt the need to remind him that he wasn't racking up any overtime hours by coming into work without having been called in. He always shot back that he didn't need the extra cash anyways, brushing their mixture of concern and annoyance at his bullheadedness aside.

He wondered what his co-workers would say if they saw him now, willingly choosing to spend his free time someplace that wasn't the office. Albeit, he did bring some documents with him in his briefcase to look over, but that was besides the point.

"Morning," came Sara's customary greeting.

"Hi, Sara. Guess you were right," he said, referring to her accusation the day prior.

"Can't believe you even doubted me." She gave him a light-hearted smirk, moving over to the counter to place his order.

He handed over his card. "I think I'll have it in a mug today. I've got some things to look over and thought I might hang around for a bit."

The words sounded strange to his own ears. He wasn't the type of man to leisurely waste time dallying around. It was of some small comfort that he was planning on reading some papers from work, at least it made him feel somewhat productive. Although, he could already tell this was a better use of his time than it would have been to pace aimlessly from the couch to the kitchen in his apartment, trying and failing to get his mind off the need to go to the office.

At least he'd be doing something, getting out and socializing. Well, that last one, not so much, even if talking to Sara was the most small talk he made in a typical week, it couldn't truly be counted as socializing in him head.

Not that he _needed_ to socialize more or anything like that.

As Sara prepared his drink, he scoped out the area, his eyes landing on an arm chair nestled in the back corner with a small end table beside it. He found the area to his liking, the spot giving him the best advantage to keep an eye on the entire room, not that he thought there was anything in particular to be searching for, but one could never be too cautious. That he'd learned the hard way more than enough times to last an eternity.

He placed his bag down beside the chair, taking out the stack of documents he'd slipped inside earlier that morning as well as retrieving a few different colored pens.

"Coffee's ready," Sara called out, and he made to take his mug. The drink looked different somehow, being prepared in a mug rather than a take-away cup. Something about it just felt more personal, comforting even. He tried to remember the last time he had coffee served to him in a mug and couldn't place the image. The scene was a thing of his past, back when Pam used to make him a morning cup to enjoy before he left the house while she got Cam ready for school.

Alex gazed down into the mug. He could just make out his own vague likeness in the mug, the full lighting causing his reflection to be painted softly across the liquid's surface.

"It's Alex," he found himself saying.

He looked back up at Sara.

"My name. It's Alex. I realized I never gave it to you."

"Well I never asked," she shot back playfully.

"It's nice to meet you, Alex."

* * *

 

Huddled in his corner, Alex barely noticed the movement around him. Customers coming in and out, waiting in line and sitting at tables, talking and laughing. The trivial interactions and happenings just passed right on along and he scarcely acknowledged any of them. He hadn't originally intended to become to reoccupied by his own work, the time just passing him by without a second thought on his part. The constant lull of idle chatter had a surprisingly relaxing quality to it, one which Alex would be caught dead before admitting it to his colleges out of fear that it would make them take his silence when near his office policy too lackadaisically.

The lingering dregs of his coffee had long since gone cold and some dried residual liquid clung to the inside of the mug, painting the inner walls in faint streaks of brown.

His reading glasses had fallen down his nose, resting on the tip as he flipped another page. Pausing for a second, he then added a note in the margin of the paper, completely unaware of another's gaze from behind the coffee counter gracing him with a calculating eye.

Alex was so lost in his work that he hadn't even noticed the dwindling of the morning rush until he realized he was able to hear Sara's voice carrying over.

"Thanks, Michael," he heard, and his head shot up as if on cue, glasses nearly sliding all the way off his face from the sudden movement.

He let his pen drop onto the table, his hand coming up to remove the frames before they feel off. From his spot in the corner, he could see the lean figure of a man standing near Sara.

If it wasn't for his extensive training in controlling his emotions, his eyes would have widened dramatically.

There, standing only a few feet away from Sara, was the man with the sweet voice, the one who whipped around the coffee bar like it was second nature. The man Sara had just referred to as Michael.

Michael, the person she said was responsible for the wall décor. Michael, who was supposedly just an art teacher and dutiful coffee shop employee on the side. Michael, who was-wait, what was he doing?

Alex nearly started as Michael started walking in the direction of where Alex himself was settled. He barely had enough time to compose himself before Michael was standing right in front of him

 _God, his eyes are so blue_ , was the first coherent thought Alex was able to process. This Michael character just stood there, arms hanging limp by his side, face expressionless.

A beat passed before he spoke.

"Do you want me to remove that cup, sir?" he asked, indicating the coffee mug resting on the edge of the table with a flick of his wrist.

"Sure," Alex was able to gruff out, his voice dry from lack of use. The thought that he probably sounded so unappealing flickered through his mind. _Great, now I've probably scared the guy off._

Michael, though, seemed not to notice anything amiss with Alex's disposition, not that he would, Alex reminded himself, seeing as Michael literally did not know anything about him.

Alex bent down to pick up the empty mug, extending his arm out to hand it to Michael. Michael meet his hand and Alex watched as his slim fingers folded over the top rim of the mug, the palm of his hand cradling the mug. His finger nails were nicely groomed and buffed bluntly across, Alex noted, and there was a small callus on the side of the top portion of his middle finger.

He met Michael's eyes as he passed over the mug. They were even more striking up close, the morning light gifting them a new intensity, casting them in a shade of piercing ice blue. For the brief moment that their eyes met, Alex was memorized. He quickly regained his composure as Michael pulled back and made his way into the back kitchen and out of Alex's sight.

So this was _the_ Michael. The man behind the wall detail with the stencil-like perfect hand writing and confidence behind the coffee bar.

Alex shuffled his papers into a neat stack and slipped them inside his briefcase. He adjusted the straps so that he could sling the bag over one shoulder and stood up to make his leave.

The morning had certainly turned out to be much more interesting than he'd originally counted on, and he was anxious for the next time he would be seeing Michael.

Unfortunately, Alex had to put his little investigation of coffee shop Michael on the side for the time being; later that same afternoon he was called in to come look at a crime scene.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alex is definitely not smitten at first sight...
> 
> I've developed some intense plot ideas for the future of this fic that I can't wait to get on to writting. I hope everyone is enjoying this so far. Any comments, suggestions, errors to point out, etc, please, leave them below! I'd really love to hear what people think of my fic so far. 
> 
> AN: Wentworth Miller looks like he has different colored eyes is nearly every picture of him. I believe they are bright blue but the lighting sometimes alters the appearance of light colored eyes (even though I feel like my own blue eyes always look the same regardless). I've based Michael's eye color of some pics of him from season one with very bright blue eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex gets a new case.

"Adult male. Asian-American. Mid-fifties. Worked Tour 1. Says he was one of the lower-level supervisors. A maintenance man found him this morning. The story is that he slipped and fell down an opened manhole. The fall knocked him out cold and he drowned in the hole."

Alex listened to the man delivering the casualty report, mentally preparing himself as he was led over to the scene of the crime by one of the agents who'd gotten to the scene before him. The incident had occurred over night, although the exact time of death hadn't been determined yet, it was probably not too long before dusk.

Alex stopped a few feet away from the drenched body of a man laying on the ground, lifeless and still, his water logged skin puffy and tinged a sickly bluish-white pallor. His body had been dragged up from within a manhole on the outer grounds of the USPS Main Processing and Distribution Center near where the mail trucks were kept overnight.

The morning sun was morphing into an intense afternoon heat, shining like a beacon in the bright blue sky, and strong rays were beating down on Alex as he directed his gaze to the body before him. He ignored the sweat threatening to trickle down his forehead and fall onto his brow and watched as the FBI forensics team finished gathering whatever additional samples they needed.

The Chicago Police Department had dispatched some cops to the scene when the first call was placed earlier that morning, much to Alex's dismay. The CPD had an annoying tendency to disturb crime scenes, touching too much and rendering evidence inconclusive. Although, in this poor man's case, Alex believed his skin was too clogged with contaminated rainwater for the forensics team to be able to collect anything of use.

"The man who found him said that he was doing a routine check-up of the area, looking for anything out of the ordinary. He passed over a pothole and saw that the lid had been half removed, revealing the opening below. He said this was resting beside it."

A zip-lock bag was held out for Alex to see. Water droplets clung to the interior of the bag, making the object inside appear cloudy, but the shape was unique and easily discernible. Inside rested a black origami crane folded out of construction paper, the flaps of the small bird still wet and sticking together.

Alex eyed the contents of the bag, his brain already filling up with possible reasons as to what it meant. He pushed them aside for now. There would be plenty of time to explore them later, first he had to get the full story.

"Is the maintenance worker who discovered the body still here?" he inquired.

"Yep, over there." The agent gestured to the figure of a large man hovering beside a postal truck. "We asked him if he could stay on site until you arrived."

Alex nodded, the motion effectively dismissing the other agent as he made his way over to the witness.

"Are you Mahone?" the man asked as Alex approached. "They said I needed to wait here until a Mahone came. Said I needed to tell him what happened. Dunno why, I already told the cops and a bunch of men in suits, I really ought a be gettin' back to work. They don't pay ya to just hang around."

"I'm Agent Mahone. FBI," Alex replied, ignoring the man's babbling. He moved mechanically to flash his badge, his mind already cataloguing details about the man standing before him.

"I'm Richard Dawes," the employee said.

Despite his broad torso and imposing height, Dawes was far too transparent to even be considered a suspect. Although Alex would run a full scan on him regardless, as he would on everyone who was possibly involved in the worker's death; he wasn't the type of agent who was easily swayed by soft looks or a kind demeanor. One never knew what was lurking behind a person's seemingly friendly facade.

Alex leveled him a look, even though the other man couldn't see his expectant glare behind his black tinted sunglasses, he knew his thin-lipped expression alone conveyed just as much.

"So," the man began, "like I told the other guys, I'd been doing a routine check of the area. It's my job to make sure everything looks in order when I arrive, ya know? Ya never know, one little thing amiss and the next thing ya know, the whole plant's gone haywire." Alex refrained from commenting that that was exactly what appeared to have happened this morning.

"So," Dawes continued, "I was checkin' things out, like normal, and I spotted the lid of a manhole out of place, not covering the hole anymore. A couple o' guys had come through the other day to fix something down there, said they were with the city. I assumed that they messed up or something and the lid got loose. Could be a real hazard if it was true.

"But as I got closer, I saw this paper bird sitting next to the lid. It was odd, I mean, how in the world could that have gotten there? It was just sitting there, straight up, like someone placed it there for me to find. I was about to call a guy over to help me close the lid but then something inside caught my eye and I looked down, and there he was! Inside the hole! The night-shift supervisor."

Alex listened intently to the man's tale, absentmindedly taking note of the wild movements of Dawes' hands as he recounted what happened this morning.

As it stood, the story held that the employee slipped and fell into the storm drain. There had been a heavy rain that night and the water flooded the drain, essentially drowning the man. By the morning, the water had passed through the drain and the man's body remained slumped at the bottom of the hole, only to be discovered by the maintenance man come morning. 

All of this seemed plausible, but there was one small detail that didn't match, didn't make sense.

The paper crane.

How did it get there, who put it there, and even more importantly, what did it mean?

The questions circled around Alex's head as he went through the routine process of investigation, questioning, observing, listening, and wondering, his mind already piecing facts together and formulating ideas.

* * *

 

Back at headquarters, Alex viewed video footage of all the available cameras in the proximity of the crime scene. Combing through evidence was one of the necessary evils that came with his line of work. It was beyond tedious, but if one lost concentration for even a second, something could be accidently missed. Alex sat deathly still beside the video analyst, watching for something, anything out of the ordinary.

It was just his luck that none of the security cameras had a direct view of the sewer drain, and thus Alex was unable to rule if the supposed story that the supervisor had simply slipped was true.

"There!" he announced, pointing at the screen after what seemed like hours. The analyst paused the video, slowing it down and zooming into the spot Alex indicated.

The blurry outline of a man in black could just be made out against the dark shadows of the night. This portion of the plant was left unlit at night, making it difficult to distinguish the play of light in the distance from movement, and the torrents of rain pouring down enhanced this difficulty tenfold.

Alex watched as the figure appeared on one end of the screen and walk across the screen, passing the wide open area Alex knew led towards the storm drain in question. There had been no video footage of anyone caught walking in the middle of the night in direct view of the cameras, leading Alex to believe that the man had somehow entered the area from over the fence that enclosed the facility and marked the borders of the plant's territory.

Alex sighed, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose in aggravation. He was back to square one with nothing to go on except the hazy dark outline of a man and a black paper crane.

* * *

 

Days had turned into a week, and then two, and Alex was yet to glean anything of importance to advance the case, let alone something substantial enough to be considered a breakthrough. He spent his days huddled in his office, racking his mind to see something else in the string of papers, notes, and photos strung up on the wall. Once again, his collection of colored post-it notes were put to use, filling the open space with color and scribbled pen marks. Yet this time, looking at them only filled Alex when a sense of mounting irritation rather than nostalgia.

The supervisor's death had inevitably been spread to the media, making in onto the prime-time Saturday evening news that same day Alex had first been brought into the case. At the FBI's request, some details had been shielded from the public, notably the fact that homicide was on the table.

The news had reported the incident in the vaguest of terms, using Dawes' testimony as the major credible source behind the story. The witness was instructed to forgo mentioning or even alluding to the paper crane. The last thing Alex needed was for people pointing fingers on their buddy who practiced origami on the side or frantic mothers clogging up the police hotline by calling the authorities on the clown at their kid's birthday party who could fold paper in the shape of animals.

From the manner in which the story was presented to the public, it sounded more like the supposed accident Alex had been originally told was the most likely possibility. The released reports classified the case as "on-going," although any nod to the FBI's involvement went unmentioned. While it was routine for the FBI to be involved in investigating the death of a federal employee, the less information the public was bluntly given regarding the case, the better.

Alex already ruled out the possibility that the origami bird was a reference to a gang or cult symbol. He'd set his team to work uncovering all conceivable meanings for the little object left behind at the crime scene, even the most unlikely of explanations could not be over looked. They'd questioned the dead man's family thoroughly, a sensitive process considering his distraught wife could scarcely get out a word or two without choking up.

The manager, whose name was Charlie Wong, was born in Chicago. Him and his wife owned and operated a Chinese grocery not far from their house in the heart of the city. Everyone with even the slightest bit of association to Mr. Wong described him as an altruistic man with a big heart, citing him to be always giving out free samples of his latest products. When probed whether it was possible that someone could have wanted to harm the man, Alex's team had received every possible variation of "I can't imagine anyone who would want to harm Charlie" under the sun. He even had them dig into the man's familial ties and relationships, scouring through his ancestral history for any connection or reference to the symbol of a crane.

As Alex suspected, they'd emerged from their research empty handed. 

Alex found himself unable to shake off the sense that he was missing something, some piece of crucial information that hadn't been revealed to him yet and he was getting restless, anxious even to discover it.

* * *

 

He refused to concede that the case seemed to have reached a dead end. It was simply not an option. There _had_ to be something more, something he needed to find. In the meantime, he'd been assigned various other cases as they arose, but a piece of his mind was still fixed on the murder of the postal employee, on the black paper crane that was beginning to haunt his waking hours and consume his thoughts.

Alex was not the kind of agent who gave up easily. It was just not a part of his character or in his disposition. If he had been, then he wouldn't be where he was now, he'd have given into to the pain and humiliation that defined his childhood long ago.

His team had tried in subtle way to wean him off from obsessing over the case, and when those didn't work, they tried in some not-so-subtle ways as well. Most notably, locking him out of his office until he promised to focus on one of the other cases which had been assigned to them. Alex resigned himself to their influence and put his efforts towards his other work; still, they knew better than to comment about the space on his wall that remained filled with any and all information they had on the postal killing. 

It had become clear to him, however, that his talents would be put to better use working on his other caseloads in the meantime. It wasn't admitting defeat, no. It was a shift of his focus for the time being, until something new emerged in his main case. Even then, this temporary switch in his immediate focus didn't stop him from being on edge, waiting for a new development which he had the inkling sensation would arise sooner or later.

He'd been tracking all local postal blogs, newspapers, and various media, keeping tabs on them in case something suspicious was mentioned off-handedly. A part of him was hoping the killer would slip up, mention something about birds or cranes or even reference a symbol, although he knew the chances of such a mistake being made were slim, he still hoped for something. Somewhere along the line in the investigation, he'd come to the conclusion that the killer had to be associated with the post office somehow, either an ex-employee at the plant, or from another area.

While he'd ruled out the possibility of this crime stemming from a personal feud with the victim, the murder itself was too much of a coincidence for this to have been random. The body was left in such a way that Mr. Wong's death appeared to have been the result of a careless misstep. A slip in the rain and an unceremonious tumble straight into the manhole that just so happened to be accidently left ajar.

It was almost like the entire scene had been staged to look like it was an accident. And yet, the killer had left that paper crane. The one symbol that indicated without a doubt that there was more to this case then initially met the eye. 

Alex was torn. He knew that he needed a breakthrough in the case. But he knew that such breakthroughs usually came with a body count attached. Yet, he couldn't dislodge his desire for a new development no matter what the potential cost.

He stared at his wall, eyes roaming over the post-it notes as he felt his irritation with the entire case escalate. His fists clenched at his side and he let out a long, slow breath. Getting angry with a situation he had no control over would do nothing except set him back further. He needed to keep his wits about him and his emotions in check, if only to prevent his colleagues from getting on his back.

He needed a break. And he knew just where to find one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, no Michael in this chapter but he'll be returning in the next one. What do ya'll think about Alex's new case? Let me know below!  
> Thank you to everyone who's reading this! It means so much to me that this even has views, ah. I can't believe I've reached 12k already, that is crazy to me. 
> 
> Question: So far, this story has been Alex-centric. Do you want to see things from Michael's perspective too or should I keep things from Alex's point of view? 
> 
> AN: My dad is a retired manager of maintenance at USPS and the case in this story is based on a similar real life incident. One of the workers at his plant fell into a storm drain and drowned. While the character in my fic is ficitional, he's based on a man who my dad said was a great person and a hard worker. You can read about him [here](http://http://miami.cbslocal.com/2012/02/07/miami-postal-worker-may-have-drowned-in-storm-drain/)
> 
> Tour 1 is the red-eye shift (about 11:00pm to 6:00am)
> 
> I'm not particuarly sure how the preliminary investigation process is handled when the FBI is involved as opposed to just the local police dept. so I hope that part wasn't too wonky.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alex is (not) very smooth.

The charming atmosphere of the coffee shop washed over Alex as he stepped in. Somehow he had begun equating the shop with comfort, he's not sure how or when he started associating the place with that feeling, but he knew it was true the moment he walked in.

There was something about the place that gave him a sense of serenity. Those mornings when he was greeted by Sara's cheerful smile and soothing voice, and left with his hands soaking up the warmth seeping through a hot paper cup filled with just enough stimulant to get him over the early morning hurdle. Or the evenings when he let himself drown in the sound hustling customers and the whistling noise of coffee brewing and milk steaming. He'd come to look forward to it all.

Alex cast a roaming eye over the shop, observing. It was a workday and Alex had arrived at an odd time. The sun had already reached its peak, light streaming in through the large windows. It was mid-afternoon by now, and it felt like an eternity had passed since he'd last been here. His mind was already clearing, the reel of thoughts playing in his head on a continuous loop about the postal killer case that were plaguing him quieted down to a low murmur.

Michael was looming somewhere behind the register and Alex could just see his dark short hair peeking out from his shielded position. A sense of relief quickly came over him before he cast it away. He was glad that he wasn't automatically greeted with the sight of Michael's face,  that he didn't have to be caught off guard by the scrutiny of the man's piercing gaze. It was a futile wish considering Michael moved into full view as soon as Alex approached the counter.

He leveled Alex with a vague look, and Alex watched as his face moved through a series of micro-expressions so fast that they would have normally went unnoticed by the common eye, however, Alex was trained to pick up on such eccentricities of human behavior. Michael cocked a brow ever so slightly, the movement followed by a twitch at the edge of his lips before his countenance morphed into an easy smile.

"Dark roast, extra sweet?" He asked lightly before Alex even had the chance to say anything.

"I remember you from your last visit," Michael said after a beat passed and Alex still hadn't opened his mouth.

"Ah, yes, you're correct." Alex gave him a tentative smile and noticed how some tension in Michael's shoulders visibly dissipated. He stored that piece of information away.

After paying, Alex waited for his drink, watching as Michael turned towards a teenage girl also standing behind the coffee bar.

"Can you fill this order by yourself?" Alex heard Michael ask, and the girl nodded, causing Michael to grin.

The sight made something in Alex's heart flutter, a subtle increase in its beating and a slight tightening in his chest. Michael's smile, when unfettered by the pretense of polite mannerisms, lit his entire face up, making the corners of his eyes crease, and Alex found himself longing for that natural smile to be directed towards him.

He squashed that thought down abruptly, and simply stood for a few moments until Michael came over, drink in hand.

"Sorry for the longer wait," he said. "Eliza is still learning."

Alex looked over Michael's shoulder at the young girl whose back was turned to him before his eyes flickered back to Michael's face.

"It's no problem at all," he replied. The tightening in his chest returned, gaining in pressure the longer he held Michael's gaze.

"Can I, uh, have my drink please?" Alex said, the words tumbling awkwardly out of his mouth. Michael hadn't put the cup down yet, and Alex wasn't sure he could stand there any longer and wait for him to do so. He suddenly felt anxious, like he needed to excuse himself from this social situation immediately.

The feeling brought on a wave of nostalgia for when he was an awkward child, probably around five or six, and had a hard time making friends. After enduring his father's unforgiving wrath for over a decade, and surviving in the Special Ops, Alex thought that childhood nervousness had long since left him. That was before he met Pam, however. He recalled how his hands sweat and his words fell unceremoniously from his lips whenever he talked to her. He was a young man then, uncertain and falling hard for a woman way out of his league. It was understandable. 

A part of him questioned what it was that spurring on this feeling he had believed to buried away under hardened layers of his many life experiences.

He was saved from delving further self-introspective thoughts by Michael's voice.

"Oh, sorry," the man mumbled, and placed the cup on the counter close to Alex. Still, Alex didn't reach for it right away. He knew that once he had the drink in his hand, his little interaction with Michael would cease.

He didn't want it to end. There was something about Michael that was so intriguing, as if the man's presence was beckoning Alex nearer, and Alex wanted to give in.

Momentary panic over the idea that he would have to leave this conversation behind flooded him, and he spoke quickly and against his better reasoning, the words just tumbling out from his unchecked lips.

"Do you want to come sit with me?"

* * *

 

Michael blinked. His countenance gave no indication that he even heard Alex, no sign that the words even registered with the man.

Alex chastised himself, thoughts swarming his head and nearly overcoming him with how fast they flickered through. _Why did he say that? What made him ask Michael that? Besides, Michael was working! Obviously he couldn't come and leisurely sit with Alex even if he wanted to. Which he most likely didn't want to._ Alex found himself agreeing with his inner thoughts.

Of course Michael wouldn't want to sit with him, Alex wouldn't even want to sit down with himself given the choice.

"I'm just gonna-" he started, letting the words die on his lips as he promptly spun around to flee the scene and refusing to acknowledge the heat suddenly warming his cheeks.

Michael blinked again, and, as if shaking out of some trance, quickly rushed out a single word.

"Sure," he said.

Alex halted mid-step.

_Did Michael just- No, he couldn't have._

Against his better judgment, Alex slowly made to face the coffee counter again, half expecting Michael to already be gone and left staring at an empty space, that he had just imagined the other man's response.

Yet, when he turned back around, he was greeted with a genuine smile, Michael's pink lips parted and his teeth exposed. His soft eyes gazed directly at him, his stare too intense, too focused, and it made Alex want to look away, but he didn't, if only because he didn't want to lose sight of the man standing before him.

"I- um, okay," he said, immediately feeling stupid over his response, over his reaction to Michael in general. What was it about this man that fascinated Alex endlessly? He wanted to deny the intense response in him that Michael's presence, his smile and his eyes, elicited from him, but the incessant fluttering of his heart prevented him from doing so.

Alex swallowed carefully, stealing his feelings away for the time being, well, more like for an indefinite amount of time, most likely a long, long time.

He watched as Michael slipped off his apron, Alex hadn't even noticed him wearing one, and eased himself put from the low little door that separated the counter from the rest of the shop with a push of his hip.

He turned back around to face the mostly empty shop, scanning the area for a suitable seating area. He settled on the same corner he sat in a few weeks ago.

"I'll go grab another chair," he said, but Michael shook his head, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture.

"No, don't worry about it. I got it. You go fix up your drink."

Alex nodded in response and made his way back over to the fixing station, preparing his drink at record speed and then spinning back around just in time to see Michael step back from the chair he pulled over.

Michael waited the few seconds it took for Alex to walk back over before sitting down across from his.

Now that he finally had Michael to himself-

 _Wait, that sounded wrong,_ he thought, casting the impish wording of his own thoughts away as his brain scrambled to rephrase the words.

Now that he was finally able to _talk_ to Michael, Alex was at a loss as to what he wanted to say.

He knew he wanted to ask Michael about the drawing on the wall that had first intrigued him beyond belief. He wanted to know about the meaning behind it, and not just useless historical facts he could look up in a textbook, no. He wanted to hear what it meant to Michael, because he knew it meant _something_ , something deeper and more personal that Alex could figure out on his own, even in spite of his often times uncanny deductive reasoning ability.  

He also wanted to know more about how Michael met Sara, and how a man blessed with such skill with a pencil and brush ended up working in a coffee shop. He sensed the other day that Sara was holding something back about her relationship with Michael, and Alex wanted to know exactly what it was. Did the two have a more complicated history that extended beyond simple work colleagues?

He wanted to know so many things, and yet, the first question out of his mouth was,

"So, how do you like your coffee?"

He could have slapped himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me what you think! I'd really love to hear it. I want to know if anyone else is enjoying this story or if it's just me. 
> 
> Stay turned, I think the next chapter will be in Michael's perspective!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A coffee shop conversation between the boys.

_"So, how do you like your coffee?"_

The words jumbled around in Michael's head for a moment, rolling back and forth as he tried to take stock of what was happening.

_Did he really just ask me that,_ he thought.

He looked across from him to see expectant eyes waiting for a reply, and if the other man seemed the slightest bit uncomfortable, well, Michael wasn't going to comment on it.

A beat passed and he was yet to respond, and Michael figured he might as well just answer.

"Actually," he said, "I prefer tea."

From the questionable look Michael received at his admission, he assumed his answer wasn't what the other man expected.

"Coffee has always been too strong to me, too bitter. Although, perhaps I should try whatever you're drinking. Considering how much sugar you add to it, I'd bet it tastes more like candy than coffee."

If he was a man with any less self-restraint, Alex would have balked at Michael's words.

Was that a joke? _Did he just joke with me? I barely know him, and he's already making jokes with me._

Alex couldn't quite understand it. He knew that his outward appearance often deterred people from relaxing around him, a fact of life he'd come to rely on. It made easy work at foregoing pleasant niceties and getting straight down to business, whether it was in interrogation of suspects or in pressing his team. And his typical no-nonsense demeanor, added to that the perpetual grimace printed on his lips and the barrier his sunglasses provided him, he wasn't used to being joked with.

In fact, Alex racked his brain to remember the last time someone felt comfortable enough with him to relax in his presence and crack a joke.

Yeah, that's right, the last person he could recall being so lax with him was his divorce attorney. That man had an uncanny ability to try and make Alex smile even as he saw his now ex-wife leave the court room hand-in-hand with his son, try being the operative word as whatever his attorney said just rolled right off him as a sinking feeling nestled firmly in Alex's stomach.

His son hadn't even looked back at him that day.

And yet, here this Michael character was, teasing him, and they'd barely said more than a handful of words to one another; it made Alex crave that feeling of ease he hadn't truly experienced since Cam was a toddler.

Well, Alex wasn't one to let an unforeseen opportunity slip past him.

He smiled, just a slight upturn at the corner of his mouth but a smile nonetheless. A light chuckle escaped from his lips as Alex said, "Would you like to try it and find out?"

Now it was Michael's turn to look surprised. His eyes widened, his lips parting in a small "o." Alex decided he very much liked the look on the other man, and he felt a swell of pride in himself for being able to elicit such a response from Michael.

Deciding to make the first move before Michael could reject Alex's spontaneous offer, Alex leaned over in his chair to remove the lid off his cup, pushing the drink close to Michael.

Michael looked down at the dark liquid, steam still radiating off the top of the cup, now free to rise into the air unburdened by the plastic lid. Without a second thought, Michael reached for the cup, carefully bringing the rim of the drink up to touch his lips.

As soon at the liquid entered his lips, his face contorted in the most grotesque of ways. He couldn't prevent the chocking sound he made as he forced down a swallow, his throat clenching at the God-awful taste in his mouth.

"Oh my God, this is disgusting. How do you even drink this?" he said. His tongue smacked against his lips in a futile effort to dispel the appalling flavor clinging to it.

Alex let out a snigger at Michael's initial reaction, the sound turning into a full-blown laugh at the other man's expense.

Michael leveled him a stare meant to be intimidating, but it just made Alex laugh more.

"Oh, God, you should have seen your face!"

"Very funny," Michael said, but even he couldn't do much to hide the smile forming on his lips.

"Ah- I'm sorry," Alex said between laughs.

"I'm sorry," he said again, this time his voice back to normal. "I'm laughing at you and I haven't even properly introduced myself."

"I already know who you are, Alex," Michael replied lightly, but the words caused something in Alex to clamp down.

Michael _knew_ him?

Ideas sprang forth rapidly into Alex's mind as he weighed the results of what Michael could know and determined which fact about him would be the worst to hear replayed back to him from the other man's lips.

"You know me?" Alex asked tentatively, not letting any suggestion of his inward feelings come through in his voice.

"Yeah, Sara told me about you and your strange coffee habits."

Sara, _of course_.

 Sara mentioned him to Michael. Why Alex had jumped to conclusions, he didn't know. It was the most logical assumption that Sara had made some off-handed remark about him to Michael while working. The threads of panic that had just begun to seep into his mind dissipated, and Alex was left with a growing desire to know exactly what Sara had said about him, or if she even said anything worthwhile about him at all.

"I hope she didn't say anything too bad," he probed.

"No, nothing bad," Michael said, "she usually tells me about some of the interesting customers she comes across."

The corner of Alex's mouth twitched up at that. "So you think I'm interesting?"

Michael frowned. "I didn't say that."

Hearing that, Alex felt a twinge in his chest and tried to ignore it, simply letting out a soft, "Oh."

"I've only just met you really. I haven't formed an opinion on you yet."

"Oh," Alex said again. "Well, I'm not that interesting, really."

"I'm just have to see about that," said Michael.

A warm feeling spread through him, rising above the sinking sensation he had momentarily experienced.

_I guess you will_ , Alex thought to himself.

* * *

They talked about aimless things for the next twenty minutes or so until the young girl Alex had seen behind the counter came over and whispered something in Michael's ear.

"Ah, it looks like I have to be getting back now," Michael said as he nodded to the girl and watched as she made her way back to the counter.

Despite his words, Michael was still sitting there, looking at Alex.

"I, uh, enjoyed talking to you Alex," he said as he stood up.

Alex followed suit, standing and moving closer to Michael.

"So did I," Alex said.

They stood there for a moment, Alex clutching the long-since emptied cup in his hands, the paper creasing with the force of his fingers pressing into it. His palms started to feel clammy and he pressed into the cup harder, feeling it dent under his touch.

He didn't want Michael to go, he realized. There was no logic behind this seemingly peculiar desire, and Alex refused to delve into his reasoning for this strange need. All he knew it that he much rather be talking to Michael about nothing of substance, just listening to the other man's calming voice wash over him instead of going back to his empty apartment to drive himself off the wires trying to uncover any more information he could about the postal killer.

The prospect of his eventual return to his apartment forced him to linger for just another moment, trying to come up with something to say. Perhaps it was rude of him; Michael needed to get back to work, and here Alex was, stalling.

"I-," he began, but Michael cut him off.

"I'll see you around then, yeah?" he asked, aiming a measured look at Alex. From his expression alone, Alex couldn't figure out what the younger man was thinking. Was he simply saying that in order to get Alex to leave? Or maybe he made it a routine to interact with his customers like this all the time, and Alex was just that, another lonely customer.

He decided he wasn't going to pass judgment just yet, and while it might come back to bite him in the future, right now, Alex wanted to keep an open mind about Michael.

"Of course," he said, and Michael smiled, that same genuine smile Alex had seen him give the trainee behind the counter earlier.

"Here," Michael said, "let me take that for you." He made to reach for the empty cup in Alex's hand and Alex released his deathly grip on the flimsy thing.

Alex watched for a moment as Michael turned and moved back to collect his apron, stopping to toss the cup into the trash on the way. The doorbell chimed its usual toll as Alex stepped out into the brisk air. He realized, now that he was out of the coffee shop and away from Michael, that he hadn't once asked Michael any of the questions that had been pestering him.

_I just have to come back and talk to him again_ , Alex thought, an effortless smile creeping up onto his lips as he made his way back home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this part! I had fun writing it. I love Alex and Michael's coffee shop fluff.
> 
> Any comments, questions, suggestions are always welcome and I appreciate every kudos and comment I receive! They make me beyond happy to see and help keep me motivated to get chapters out quickly.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A glimpse at the events leading up to how Michael ended up working in a coffee shop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The long-awaited Michael POV has arrived.

Michael had been working at the coffee shop for close to six months now, since Sara had formally opened the place.

He'd jumped right onto the idea when she off-handedly mentioned it to him one evening, readily expressing his enthusiasm at the prospect of her opening up her own coffee shop. Sara had driven over with Lincoln after their weekly meeting at the Drug Rehabilitation Center that night, like she did so many nights now it seemed.   

Michael had met Sara through Lincoln as it was.

After LJ's mother, Lisa, was killed in a car accident, it fell to Lincoln to take care of his son, and that was when Michael presented a final ultimatum to his brother: either clean up his act for good this time, or Michael would being petitioning the courts for custody of LJ.

That, of course, had turned into argument, like most conversations between the two of them seemed to result in. Accusations were flung at one another, harsh words thrown left and right like this whole situation was some sort of batting practice, like the ones Michael could vaguely remember their father used to take them to as little boys.

Only this time, instead of watching the white baseball be flung across the air with such force that it caused the thing to pound against batting cage, Michael was the cage itself, suffering from an onslaught of cruel words. And he could do nothing but just take them, his own angry reactions doing nothing except to spur Lincoln's tirade on further.

He knew that Lincoln wasn't himself, wasn't thinking clearly. Although, it was difficult to find a moment in which the man was at least semi-lucid these days. As they got older, Lincoln's drug addiction got progressively worse, and Michael found himself having to pick up the slack for his older brother.

A month in which Michael didn't see the caller ID of the CPD when he flipped open his ringing phone, the little digitalized numbers glowing back up at him as he accepted the call with a sigh, was a rarity. Countless trips to the police station had become a normality, so many that the guilty and downtrodden look always adoring Lincoln's face was etched behind Michael's eyes, his endless mantra of "I'm sorry, Michael," imprinted in his memory.

Lincoln had stormed out that night, door slamming shut with such an intensity that the walls seemed to rattle. Michael collapsed onto the sofa, the leather cold on his exposed skin from lack of use.  His braining felt like it was drumming against his skull as he replayed their conversation and subsequent verbal sparring over and over in his mind.

He was drained, too exhausted even to go get the bottle of scotch he kept stored away in one of the kitchen cabinets behind boxes of pasta and cereal that he saved for occasions like this. He knew the biting taste of the clear liquid on his tongue would numb him for a while, make him stop rethinking everything and wondering where he went wrong or what he could have fixed. He knew it wasn't his fault, but that didn't stop him from pilling Lincoln's problems upon his shoulders, letting this seep into his skin and bury themselves in his heavy heart.

He felt responsible. It was as simple as that. And yet, no matter how hard he looked, how many decades worth of memories he mentally combed though, he couldn't understand what was happening to his brother, and worse, he couldn't fix it. And it was that last point which drove him insane and left him restless.

* * *

Three week after the incident, and Michael was yet to hear a peep from Lincoln, something that made Michael feel as satisfied as he did concerned. Albeit, he had neglected to reach out to his brother either, but he truly had nothing more to say to the other man. He'd said all he needed to say during their last encounter, anything else and he'd feel even more like a scratched record than he already did.

Actually, his constant lecturing which produced no positive results left him feeling more like his mother's favorite cassette that broke when he was a child.

_Elton John's Greatest Hits_ , he recalled.

According this his mother, it had been his grandfather's favorite.

She recounted to him a story from her childhood once, the only time he could ever remember her turning down the volume on the car stereo when the cassette was playing. Her walking in on her father one Wednesday after returning from school to find him sitting in the living room, chair pulled up close to the record player, an ice cream sundae balanced on his knee. _Carvel_ always had a sundae special on Wednesdays, she'd said. The music flowed from the room through the open archway, the soft sound travelling and filling her ears.

_Oh, I know it's not much but it's the best I can do_

_My gift is my song_

_And this one's for you_

The words played in Michael's head, the memory of his mother's voice as she sang along in the car was soft and sweet, not tainted dark and blemished like so many memories of her had become after her death. He remembered the look on her face when she'd pushed the cassette into the machine, only for it to be spit back out, film exposed and twisted, unable to play anymore.

That was how Michael felt. He'd done everything in his power to try and save his brother from the brink of self-destruction that he had been teetering on for so long, only to have his carefully crafted words riddled with wisdom and affection spit back out at him in an accusatory manner, twisted with the malice of a man losing control.

It was heartbreaking, and yet, he'd done all he could. It was up to Lincoln now to either follow through with Michael's help for good this time, or continue on his present path and lose his only son.

The passage of time without contact from Lincoln had resigned Michael to accept the latter, his mind already configuring the amount of paperwork it would take and mentally drawing up designs for how his spare bedroom would be converted into LJ's room.

The pounding of a fist on his door startled him out of his thoughts, and he made to unclasp the chain hook and turn the lock to open it.

Lincoln's large figure loomed in the door frame.

"Michael," he said. "I thought about what you said, and-" he paused, seemingly to collect his words. Michael didn't dare interrupt.

"Michael, I'm sorry. I need your help and I'm sorry. For real this time."

* * *

After that night, it was like someone set Michael's life on fast forward. Things happened quickly, all in the span of a few months.

Michael had helped Lincoln research the best rehab centers, one's which he didn't have prior bad experience with, a feat which had proved immensely difficult, although Michael wouldn't have predicted anything else. Despite Lincoln's newfound conviction to stick to getting himself back on track, he was still Lincoln, and his brother was anything if not hardheaded to the core.

It took about a week of searching for Michael to finally get fed up and just enroll Lincoln into the center not too far from the firm Michael worked at.

Lincoln complained that going to a place in what he dubbed, "the ritzy ditzy part of town," meant the rehab center would be full of moody teenagers whose parents had an endless stream of cash  to send them there and, unbeknownst to team, also were the source of their precious kid's drug money. Michael tried to reassure him that it wouldn't be like that. Even though it was more than likely Lincoln would run into that sort of crowd, Michael would never admit it out loud for the sack of trying not to stroke his brother's ego.

It had been trying at first, wearing on Michael's nerves and taxing him to no end, but every week he would pick his brother up from the center like clockwork. Lincoln never talked about the secession, and Michael didn't ask him about it, but he knew for a fact that Lincoln was attending them and not just bailing under Michael's nose like he'd done in the past.

This fact, Michael had secured by visiting the center after work on a day Lincoln wasn't scheduled to attend, and inquiring as to his brother's progress and level of participation, to which he received the standard, "he's taking it all just about as good as the next guy."

 LJ was still despondent, refusing to believe that his father was on a path towards change. He was so full of resentment, brimming with anger whenever Michael so much as mentioned Lincoln. He probably would benefit from seeing some sort of therapist, Michael reasoned, having an outsider to listen to his version of his father's problems and try to help LJ move past the frustration he had built up over the years after being let down by Lincoln.  

But Michael could only handle one family member's recovery at a time, and even then, Lincoln was still a massive challenge.

* * *

The rough first few weeks passed by, and Michael and Lincoln had fallen into a sort of routine. Lincoln would wait for him to bring his car around, watching with a vacant expression as Michael pulled up to the front of the center. He'd mold his body in the comfortable black leather seats, the blue interior lighting illuminating shadows across his face as the brightness of the daytime morphed into shades of deep purple beneath the setting sun. Michael would play the radio, the volume just loud enough to be heard over the evening traffic. He wasn't sure if the background noise was for his own peace of mind or Lincoln's, but his brother had never complained either way, simply sitting there and staring straight out the windshield as the city passed them by.

Most weekends, LJ came over. After the first month, Lincoln decided he needed something to get his mind off from focusing of his cravings. Whether he came to that conclusion by himself, or was told so at the center, Michael didn't know. One day Michael had opened his door to see his brother and nephew standing under the arch, a worn backpack clutched in the latter's  hand.

"Michael, I'm going to work and I don't want LJ staying home alone."

By the despondent look on his nephew's face, Michael could tell that they'd argued about it and LJ had lost. Still, Michael had welcomed the boy in without asking for further clarification as to what exactly his brother was doing for work, although he didn't even get much of a chance considering Lincoln was a man with a quota of words that didn't extend over fifty most days.

"It's construction work," LJ said without any prompting, and Michael looked at him with one raised eyebrow.

He heard a LJ sigh before he continued, dropping his bag on the table in Michael's small excuse of a dining room- he wasn't prone to having many guests over, at least not enough to fill and entire table at one time.

"It was the first thing he found and he jumped on it. I saw the newspaper he left on the coffee table with a circle around the gig. The project's supposed to take about six months."

And with that, LJ opened up his bag, pulling out his laptop along with the new headphones Michael had bought him for his last birthday.

He watched him for a few seconds, his nephew totally tuning Michael and everything else around him out.

It was going to be a long journey, Michael thought as he made his way into his home office.

A very long journey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is more than welcome! Hope everyone is enjoying this story so far. It's going to be fun exploring things from Michael's point of view.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael and Sara meet for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Life has been pretty busy for me, hence why I haven't updated in a bit. But I got a real nice comment the other day so I decided I would just go ahead and post the chapter I had sitting around on my computer. Since I post the last chapter, I've taken 3 finals for my summer classes, written like 14 pages worth of a research paper, moved back to school, and starting training the new ROTC recruits. As you can see, it's been busy, busy, busy! But rest assured, readers, I'm still going to be updating this fic, it'll just be a little slower now that I'm back at school. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy this Michael centric chapter!

It took about three months following Lincoln's first visit to the rehab center for him to finally speak during the car ride back to his home with Michael. Michael would be lying to himself if he hadn't secretly been waiting for this day to come since the beginning. He knew that having Lincoln open up to him as to what exactly he felt after each session would be a large step in his recovery process.

Usually Lincoln was so closed-off, the epitome of a man of few words, and when he spoke more than strictly necessarily needed to convey his point, it raised an alarm in Michael's head that something was off.

When LJ was still just a toddler, Michael would sometimes accidentally overhear his brother talking to his son, the small boy resting on Lincoln's lap as he softly spoke, knowing full well that LJ was too young to comprehend anything his father was saying. He'd detail his hopes and dreams for them, desires he had never shared with Michael, had probably never shared with anyone ever.

Although Michael had only stumbled upon this happening a handful of time, the shed of guilt he felt whenever he heard the surprisingly soft voice of his brother coming from the crack of an open door never dissipated. And still, he couldn't bring himself to walk away from the scene.

Michael had assumed it was therapeutic for Lincoln. LJ's lack of understanding allowed him to be the best of listeners, simply sitting there, his chubby baby fingers playing with the hem of Lincoln's t-shirt, quiet coos coming from his pink lips as the solemn words were spoken close to his ears, their meaning going right through him.

 As LJ grew over, the talking became more sporadic until it finally ceased.

Michael hoped that Lincoln's new commitment towards getting better meant that he and LJ would be able to repair their relationship as well.

"Michael," Lincoln said a  few minutes after getting into the car.

"Yeah?"

A pause. Michael pulled up to a red light, the vibrant hue of the traffic light casting a glare off the windshield, bathing the glass in red.

He turned his head to face his brother.

"What is it, Linc?"

"The center is having a party on Saturday," Lincoln began. "And we're allowed to bring a guest. I know LJ isn't gonna want to come, and, I was wondering if you would?"

Michael blinked.

"Of course," he said not even a beat later. And that was the end of the conversation. Michael turned his head back to the road while Lincoln gazed listlessly out the window at the blur of office buildings passing by.

Lincoln texted him the time, 6:30 pm, and dress code, casual, the next day.

* * *

 

Michael arrived at Lincoln's place around 5:45 pm.

"Where's LJ?" Michael asked as Lincoln opened the door and he stepped in.

"I think he said he was going out with friends," Lincoln replied, moving to grab his house keys, phone, and wallet from their current whereabouts scattered across the kitchen counter.

"Huh."

Michael shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, declining to further press Lincoln on that. Really, he needed to be more aware as to what exactly LJ was doing. His easy acceptance of his son's vague statements left Michael with an inkling of unsettlement creeping up his spine but he chose to ignore it. He wasn't going to let his worries ruin what he hoped would be a good time for his brother.

He'd have a talk with LJ about it next time he saw the boy. 

* * *

 

Despite picking up Lincoln from the center every week, and his one-time visit with the staff in which he gathered some information about his brother's progress, Michael had never actually been into the room where Lincoln and the other participants met.

It was a large space, very plain and box shaped with all white walls and a light colored wooden floor that looked like it had seen better days if judging by the black streaks across the surface meant anything.

Chairs had been pushed back from the center of the room and were placed around little tables with white table cloths. Michael followed as Lincoln led them to one such table, not too close to the podium in the front of the room where Michael guessed one of the coordinators would give a speech at later, but not too far either.

He took stock of the arriving guests as they came in, taking in their idea of casual clothes. Michael was glad Lincoln had the foresight to wear something a little more upscale than his usual daily look of a three day old t-shirt and tattered blue jeans. His dark jeans and black button-up shirt at least let him blend in with those around them.

Although the room was very spacious, the occupants scarcely filled up even a quarter of the space. Lincoln had never said how many people were in the group with him, like everything else that went on there, it was a mystery to Michael, but he had, for some reason, expected a larger crowd than the dozen or so that were currently sitting at the tables around them. A handful of staff sat close to the podium, and the other group members were scattered across the room.

One of the women at the staff table got up and approached the podium.

"She's the one who heads the sessions each week," Michael heard Lincoln say, and he nodded absentmindedly, allowing his eyes to take in the others around them while the woman talked.

He let his gaze drift towards his brother, watching him from the corner of his eyes so as to not catch his attention. Lincoln was looking straight at the speaker, the name of who slipped passed Michael's ears- he wasn't actively listening if he was to be honest with him. He'd never really been into watching speakers or listening to lecturers, even when he was in college. He preferred to simply read the required material than hear it regurgitated back to him by a PhD who just liked to hear themselves talk. And besides, he'd always been more of a visual learner.

Still, there was something about Lincoln's expression that intrigued Michael.

Yes, it was guarded, it always was, but Michael knew Lincoln better than anyone else, and he could detect the nuance of changes in his countenance. The way his brows lacked the agitated furrow Michael had become accustomed to, the intense focus evident in his gaze as his eyes were trained on the speaker. There was something about the entire look that made Michael's heart swell.

_Maybe he's actually going to get through this_ , Michael thought, and he could barely suppress the sudden urge he had to smile.

Proud. That's what he was.

Proud of his brother for finally realizing that he needed to make a change if he wanted to keep his family, his son. He knew Lincoln wouldn't want to hear any of Michael's sentimental words, but Michael couldn't stop himself from feeling them as he allowed a glimmer of hope to pierce his heart.

* * *

 

The rest of the speech and subsequent dinner went well, although Michael presumed as much about the former considering he couldn't recall a single thing the speaker said. Dinner, though, was catered by one of the local hotels that Michael had only been to once for a conference but remembered everything being top-notch.

He was still sitting at the table with Lincoln, their plates cleared away and the two of them nursing their respective drinks. They'd fallen into a lull in conversation after Lincoln had told him a little about how the construction site project was progressing- "It's usually just me and like, one other guy actually doing the work, the rest of the lot just stand around smoking or on their phones and lookin' dumb."

Michael was feeling content as he brought his glass up to his lips to take a sip. A weird sort of calm had settled over him. He wasn't going to question it, but it made him feel, well, it made him feel at ease. More at ease than he'd felt in a long time.

He'd just put him glass back down, discretely wiping the droplets of condensation that clung to his skin on his thigh when he saw someone approach their table. So far, Lincoln hadn't really went around socializing with the other members. He'd given the occasional wave and simple "hey" while they were in line getting their food, but other than that, he hadn't really said much to anyone else besides Michael.

The person approaching had a soft beauty about her, Michael realized as she got nearer. Her smile was sweet and genuine as she stopped to the side of Lincoln's chair.

"Hey," she said, looking down at Lincoln, the smile still etched across her face, a gentle curve of pink lips.

Lincoln lifted his head to met her eyes.

"Hey Sara. You made it." He gestured with his left hand to the empty chair besides him, "Care to sit?"

"Sure, thanks."

The chair made a low scrapping sound as she pulled it back and Michael realized he was staring at her.  His eyes flickered to Lincoln and then back to Sara. He thought Lincoln would introduce him, but he should have figured that his brother lacked obvious social etiquette. He was making it awkward by not saying anything.

"Hi," Michael finally said, "I'm Michael, Lincoln's brother." He leaned over the table and extended his hand for a shake.

"Sara," she replied, taking his hand in hers for a brief clasp before releasing it. "I met Lincoln at the center."

Michael nodded in response. There was something about the way Sara carried herself, her easy smile and pleasant voice that Michael found oddly alluring. She didn't seem like the type of person to be frequently a drug rehab center every week, and if Michael didn't know better, he would have guessed she was a part of the staff rather than a member herself. He knew that he shouldn't judge solely based on appearances, but usually when he had a hunch, he wasn't wrong, or at least, not too far off.

Still, Michael, having a decent grasp of social decorum, declined to comment on it.

She turned to Lincoln then.

"I thought I was going to be too late to make it," she stated. "Usually, I leave at five, but today there was an influx of patients, and they've starting giving me more hours lately. I told them that they probably shouldn't do that, all things considering, but they are just swamped with patients since one of the nurses quit."

Michael took in her words carefully.

"Are you a doctor?" he asked.

If he wasn't the type of man who was accustomed to paying an extraordinary amount of detail on a daily basis, he would have missed the barely contained flinch his words caused.

Silence. And then-

"No. I work at a free clinic."

Michael held her gaze, finally shifting his eyes away when he realized she wasn't going to relent.

Interesting.

He sensed there was something more to the story that he wasn't seeing, something she was intentionally holding back. Still, he could tell when a subject was touchy or straight-up off the table for discussion.

He offered to get Sara a drink, either because he felt slightly bad at making this woman who he just met, and who appeared to be friendly enough with his brother (a rarity) uncomfortable, or because he was a gentlemen, he couldn't tell and decided not to linger on trying to figure it out.

He heard Sara's voice again as he walked away, picking up a conversation with Lincoln. He grabbed her a plate of sugar cookies along with a glass of raspberry merlot, hoping she'd like the pairing.

Michael didn't consider himself to be particularly knowledgeable in liquor, opting instead to stick to drinks he knew he liked rather than being adventurous with a purchase and end up puking in the bathroom. But he recalled the sweet taste of the merlot on his tongue from that one time his firm had a conference meeting at building. And one could never go wrong with sugar cookies.

He placed the items in front of Sara, earning himself a devious smirk from her. He smiled back, sincerely.

He could get to like Sara, he thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment! Your comments truly mean so much to me and I appreciate every single one of them.
> 
> Also, I'm actually still only on season 4 of PB (just started it yesterday) and boy, did episode 1 have me SHOOK! (I loved all the Mahone and Michael scenes though. I just wish Lincoln would stop being such a dick to Alex.)
> 
> And if anyone's interested, I have an fandom art instagram. It's @enigmadraws and it's mostly just drawings of DC characters and drawings of T-Bag.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex is introspective. Michael is charming.

Alex started walking to work more often.

He told himself it was nothing. That he simply preferred the freshly brewed coffee to the gross version they served down at the office. That was all it was.

Obviously.

It had nothing to do with his mounting curiosity over Michael the Barista, or so Alex started labeling the man in his mind.

Not that Alex was thinking of Michael much. It was just- it had been a long time since someone else had captivated Alex's attention like this before, so quickly and for such a an extended period of time without his interest diminishing.

Alex liked to consider himself as having a no-nonsense type of personality, and he worked his best to uphold this image in the office and in the streets. Everything was strictly business. Get the information and get out. That was what he had been trained to do, what he had learned and adapted to most of his adult life. It was almost like an innate behavior, a go-to reaction to social situations he had ingrained within him.

Pam had said it was a coping mechanism, although Alex strongly disagreed whenever she tried to use this psycho-reasoning with him.

He wasn't coping. He didn't need to cope. There was no reason for it, nothing he needed to cope over. This was just him; it was just how he was.

She'd joked about it first, a little side comment there, a remark here. Nothing major, and it hadn't bothered him, he just took it all in stride and let her words wash right over him.

It was nothing, and then one day, he caught himself doing it to Pam, creating a barrier between them. Pam, his sweet wife and first true love, the mother of his son. He forced her hand, making her drift away and he kept holding her at  an arm's length so long that she just couldn't take it anymore.

But it was all to keep her safe. She didn't understand it, still didn't, probably never would. She had always been so patient with him, even as he began to see the minute changes he was undergoing over the last few years of their marriage. She didn't push, didn't ask for much, just that he always come home to her, to their son.

He'd started working late. Later than usual. Started staying in the office until the early hours of the morning, reviewing cases, looking for signs, for anything his colleagues may have missed.

No one said anything to him when he moved a couch into his office.

He noticed the change in himself around when Cam turned three, although if he was to be frank with himself, he knew it probably started not soon after his son's birth.

He and Pam had waited a long time before having a child,  both of them having placed their careers ahead of starting a family, and that was okay with them before. Alex had known this normality which he had grown accustomed to over the years would change with the introduction of a child, and still, he accepted that. He'd been ecstatic, even dreamed about what it would feel like to have the tiny weight of their child resting in his arms, imagined little eyes looking up at him from beneath eyelids slit open just enough to see him.

It hadn't been like that.

He'd been late to the hospital, an unexpected breakthrough in a case led him on a wild trail across the city. Cam was already born by the time he arrived. He could remember the day so clearly as if it was a scene from a movie he'd watched over and over. The way the light cast a gentle shadow over his sleeping wife's face, her lips turned down in a slight frown. The stark white room, too bright and clean, making his eyes hurt, contrasting terribly with his torn suit jacket and once white blood stained shirt now dingy beyond what a good cleaning could remedy.

His son resting softly in a generic-looking crib with white sheets and white bars, a little tuff of unruly light brown hair sticking out of his otherwise bare head.

Everything was so peaceful, so still and tranquil.

He didn't belong there. He didn't belong in this room with its white walls and barren furnishings, with the two people he knew were relying on him, the two people he knew he would do anything to protect.

He felt the grime clinging to his skin keenly. The streak of dirt that had somehow ended up on the back of his neck and buried earthy minerals in the creases of his skin. The blood that had soaked into his sleeves and dried hard and stiff. He knew he really shouldn't have been allowed into the hospital at all in his state, but a flash of his badge, coupled by what he assumed was his own deranged appearance went a long way and a wary nurse had led him up to his wife's room without any further questioning.

He had just finished catching the perp and then drove over two and a half hours back into the city, not even sparing a moment to sign any paperwork after practically shoving the con into another agent's hands. If he went a little too hard on the con, threw one too many punches aimed to inflict lasting pain, well, no one would be the wiser.

Still, he had been late, and now, standing in the center of this foreign room, he felt like a stranger to his own family. He tried to suppress the onslaught of feelings threatening to bubble over, the guilt and fear that kept silently building no matter how much he tried to suffocate them under layers of paperwork during the late hours of the nights he spent in the office.

It had been okay, at least at the start. Pam had forgiven him, just as she always did, and Alex neglected to comment on how her smile didn't reach her eyes when she told him.

He promised himself that he would do everything, no matter what it took, to protect his family, to keep them from ever having to experience even the slimmest bit of horror that his line of work entailed. And if that meant taking on more cases and spending countless nights away from home and in some low-rate motel room hours away, then he would do it.

He'd sensed the strain in his and Pam's relationship, felt the weight of tension forming slight tears that tugged at the corners of their perfect world, threatening to rip everything they had built over the years to pieces.

Rather than charge head on into uncertainty, Alex ignored it. He ignored Pam's pained smiles and the way she would rest her hand on his shoulder in a brief touch that was meant to be comforting but really left him with a sense of burgeoning dread.

He could ignore all of it, and he did. Until Shales.

Oscar Shales had come into Alex's life without warning and slashed at the shallow tears in his perfect world until it was gashed apart beyond recognition. Shards of the life he once knew fell from a darkened sky like flying debris in a hurricane while he was trapped within the eye of the storm, only able to watch and wait as his world came crashing down all around him.

After the Shales case, Alex finally came to terms with the distance he was creating from his family, and yet, he was powerless to stop himself. Shales had just cut a little too close for comfort, he'd struck Alex hard and left him vulnerable and defenseless. The timing had just been all wrong. Cam had only been a few months old and Alex had already been on edge.

Shales brought forth all of Alex's insecurities, exposed him to all the pain and heartache that he had been attempting to prevent from ever entering his life.

And now, here he was, a lonely middle-aged agent still pinning over his ex-wife of nearly two years with a son who borderline refused to interact with him more than strictly necessary. Here he was, finding an odd sense of comfort in a little coffee shop with a man whose last name he didn't even know.

If Alex had and more sense, he'd probably find himself pathetic, but he couldn't even bring himself to care.

He didn't want to think of Oscar Shales, of the life he used to have, a life that no longer existed but he found he couldn't stop clinging to.

Alex sighed. Today was already starting out to be a bad day. He'd had a lot of those lately, in the last couple of years really. His colleagues knew to stay clear from him on days like those, and Alex would pretend he didn't see them dart in the opposite direction away from him whenever he was coming too near or the way his presence would make the conversation in a room cease.

The door chimed above him as he walked into the coffee shop, the tell-tale dingle of the little device signaling the arrival of a customer, and, Alex hoped, signaled his own arrival to Michael.

Alex looked across the room at the register, noting the back of Michael's head as he got closer.

"Hi," Michael greeted, and Alex smiled back at him.

"Hi," he replied.

There was a pause, a comfortable lull in which Alex admired the tiny sun spots scattered on the other's skin. He hadn't noticed before, but Michael had a slight tan, the type of tan a person got from working outside for an extended period of time, toiling under the sun's hot rays indefinitely. Alex imagined the heat beating down on Michael, his golden skin hot to the touch and his smile equally as radiant as the bright sun above.

He mentally compared the image to his own pasty pallor, the near ashen state his skin had deteriorated to as a result of one too many days spent under the florescent lights in the office.

Alex opened his mouth slowly, the silence stretching out in a manner which, under different circumstances, should have felt uncomfortable, and yet, for some reason Alex didn't feel any vestiges of awkwardness.

"I think I'll try something different today," he said, the words leaving his mouth before he truly thought them through. After he said them though, he realized he had no idea what else was on the menu that he would even like.

He squinted up at the chalkboard menu hanging behind Michael.

Michael turned, following Alex's line of sight to glance at the board as well.

"Need a suggestion?" he offered.

"Uh, I think one would be very welcomed," Alex replied sheepishly, the fancy coffee types written in Michael's meticulous print were just confusing him.

Michael smirked and rattled off a few choices.

"We started carrying our fall themed drinks last week, if you'd like one of those. I've got a feeling you'd like one with a bit of spice to it."

If Alex was a lesser man, he'd have blushed at Michael's words, regardless of the other's intention.

"Try me," was all he said, and he left a five dollar bill on the counter, a sum which more than covered the price of a single drink, and moved to the waiting area to watch Michael work and ignore his body's peculiar reaction to Michael's phrasing.

And if his focus caught on the movement of Michael's clothed forearms as he made quick work of Alex's drink, he didn't think anything of it.

After a moment, Michael reappeared, a stout, deep-colored red mug in his hand topped with whip cream that had some sort of sprinkled brown sugar on it.

Michael set the elaborate drink down in front of Alex and Alex followed the motions of the man's hand, eyes moving from the mug back up to Michael's face.

He cocked an eyebrow and indicated towards the drink with a nod of his chin.

"What's this?"

"Pumpkin spice latte."

"What even," Alex mumbled, looking down at the drink resting innocently in front of him. He had to admit to himself that the cream on top did look particularly appealing if he was being honest with himself. Michael seemed to have picked up on Alex's penchant for sweet things.

"Try it," Michael encouraged, a smile on his face as he made to rest his elbows on top of the counter in front of Alex.

Alex looked skeptically at the beverage. Heck, it was just a drink, and besides, Michael picked it especially for him, so he had to at least give it a taste. Couldn't be dropping his manners now could be, dubious as they tended to be, but that was besides the point.

"Alright."

Alex linked his fingers around the handle, his other hand coming up to cradle the mug as he brought it to his lips. The cup was so huge that it obscured most of his face. 

It tasted- spicy, spicy in a weird way that Alex never tasted before in a drink. It wasn't unpleasant, parse, but it was certainly different. He took another long sip, letting the hot liquid scale his tongue momentarily while he focused on the flavor.

Different, but interesting, good even, he thought.

"I think I like it," he confirmed as he set the drink back down. His expression shifted though as he took note of Michael's poorly contained laugher.

"What's so funny?" he demanded.

Michael paid no heed to Alex's authoritative tone, instead he kept weakly trying to stifle his own giggles.

"You've got-" he started. "You've got some-"

Alex's brows knitted and he leveled Michael with a hard glare. "I've got _what_?"

"Just-" and Michael reached across the counter and touched Alex's face. His nose to be exact. As he pulled his hand back, Alex's saw the white cream adorning his finger.

"You had some cream, on your face."

Alex looked at the finger, still processing the touch that had just occurred. It was like he could still feel Michael's finger gracing over his skin.

And then Michael put said finger in his mouth, and Alex was nothing but helpless to watch as the finger disappeared between Michael's full lips, only to reemerge clean a moment later. Michael's hand fell back down to his side as if the incident had never happened, and Alex was left reeling.

"Michael!" he heard someone call from the behind the door to the backroom The voice was slightly muffled by the door but Alex presumed it to be Sara.

"Coming!" Michael called back. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his apron and rolled back briefly on the balls of his feet.

"I'll be around," he said as a way of parting, and Alex nodded.

"I'll be here."

Michael graced him with one last soft smile before he turned and pushed through the door to meet his employer. Alex watched as the door swung back and forth on its hinges until it slowed down to a gentle sway and finally ceased.

He gazed down at his drink again. There was a chunk of whipped cream missing from the perfect swirl where he'd accidently shoved his nose into it like a fool. He resisted the urge to raise his hand up and touch the part of his face where Michael's finger hand danced across mere minutes ago.

He forced his hand to rest on his lap, the other taking a- much more careful- sip of his drink.

It was slightly ridiculous, the way Michael's charming ways ate at his composure.

He didn't know what it was, but something was going on with him, and he was nothing but determined to get to the bottom of it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't resist the drink thing. I'd been planning that scene for quite a while, and the idea of Alex drinking a pumpkin spice latte is too adorable to me (can you tell I'm excited for fall?)
> 
> Hope everyone likes this chapter! Please comment your thoughts below.


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